The Book Thief summary

Liesel Memminger is a book thief.

The first book she steals is called The Gravedigger’s Handbook and she steals it from the cemetery where the body of her six-year-old brother Werner has just been buried.

Two days earlier, Liesel, her mother, and Werner were on a train to Munich. Liesel is midway through a dream about Adolf Hitler, who is currently leader of the Nazi Party and the Chancellor of Germany. When she stirs, she sees that Werner, after a fit of coughing, has died. She spies Death as he leans down to take the boy away. 

She takes The Gravedigger’s Handbook to Himmel Strasse – translation: Heaven Street – in Munich, where her mother leaves her with her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Himmel Street is far from heavenly. Liesel quickly learns that her father, a communist, has been jailed by the Nazi regime. Rosa is brusque and unaffectionate. Hans paints houses for a living and plays the piano accordion. In their own ways, Rosa and Hans both love Liesel. School is difficult and humiliating for Liesel who is not a natural student. And she misses her mother and brother terribly. The stolen book she keeps under her mattress feels like her only connection to them. Remember – Liesel is not a natural student. So she can’t read the book, only brush her hands over its cover.

Time passes on Himmel Strasse. Liesel becomes best friends with her neighbor, Rudy Steiner, who might also secretly be in love with her. On nearby Schiller street, yellow stars appear in the windows of all the Jewish owned businesses. One night, after Hans discovers Liesel’s stolen book, he begins teaching his foster daughter to read. Liesel writes to her mother but receives no answer. She hears Hans and Rosa whispering about the “they” who have taken her mother away. War is declared in Europe.

463 days pass between thefts. But a year and a half after the day in the cemetery, Liesel steals another book. It is April 20 1940, Hitler’s birthday. Hans’s son, Hans Junior, a committed Nazi pays his parents a visit. He is angry at his father for not being devoted enough to the Nazi party – in fact, Hans has been known to paint over slurs graffitied on Jewish shops. Tonight Hans Junior’s anger is piqued by Liesel, who is reading a novel. He yells that she should be reading Hitler’s biography, Mein Kampf. Later, Liesel dresses in her Hitler Youth uniform and goes to join a birthday rally, where a book burning is taking place. The crowd at the rally is violently excited and Liesel is scared. She realizes the “they” who took her mother are the Nazis. She steals a smoldering book from the ashy remains of the book pyre. It is called The Shoulder Shrug and under her coat it burns her skin.

Analysis

From its opening pages, The Book Thief is concerned with the power of reading, writing, and words to make the personal political and the political, personal. For Liesel, books are intensely personal: the first book she steals is a talisman that connects her with the memory of her dead brother and vanished mother. Over the course of the novel, Liesel will read books alone, and with others. She will have books written for her and she will write her own books. She will find that words have the power to articulate, and release, hidden and painful feelings. She will use words and literature to connect with other people in her life who are in the depths of grief or in mortal danger. 

But The Book Thief is not a story that is afraid of nuance and ambiguity, and Zusak is quick to remind the reader that, just as words can be redemptive, they can also be harmful. Literature, for Liesel, awakens empathy and compassion; readers of Hitler’s biography Mein Kampf, however, are fed on words of fear and hate. Whether they are good or bad, in The Book Thief, words and stories are always potent.